Hera Syndulla: Jedi Counselor
by InfamousB
Summary: Hera Syndulla: Pilot, fighter and occasionaly the shoulder to lean on for a certain Jedi Master. A tag to 'Gathering Forces"


A slightly smarmy tag to 'Gathering Forces'

Don't own them, no money made, yada, yada, yada

**Hera Syndulla: Jedi Counselor**

* * *

'We need to talk.'

Usually, that was Hera's line. A little warning that no, she was not happy, and yes Kanan was going to hear about it.  
It was not a line Kanan used often. When he said it, it really meant something was wrong. Usually very wrong.

When the time had been right, they had retreated to quarters and now Kanan was sitting across from her in a low chair,  
starring at nothing in particular. Something hadn't gone as planned at the old base. Kanan's cheery greeting upon their  
return had been more reflex then anything else. Ezra's silent arrival and departure from the room and Kanan's pensive look  
as he interceded on the boys behalf had spoken disturbing volumes. They were both in one piece, for which she was  
endlessly grateful, but they had not escaped unscathed, that much was also obvious.

"So," Hera said gently. "What happened?"

Kanan didn't answer right away, flexed his hands in built up emotion and then sighed heavily before he managed a  
response.

"Ezra used the dark side, Hera." It seemed as much a confession as an explanation. "He did it to protect me, but...  
I've failed him, Hera. This is territory I don't know how to tread."

Hera looked at Kanan, the Jedi slouched in the chair and she was hard pressed to remember the last time she had seen  
him looking so disquieted. She reached out and touched his hand, stroking the back of it lightly in support.

"You are doing the best you can, Kanan. Didn't you tell me once that almost every Padawan inevitably has a brush with  
the dark side?"

He pulled his hand away and stood, fairly radiating anxiety and, Hera knowing Kanan as she did, a sense of failure.

"A Master, a true Master can guide a Padawan away from the dark side! Teach them to not give in, Hera, I.." He gestured  
helplessly. "I don't know how. And because of that, I may have led Ezra to a path he would never had chosen on his own."

Hera stood also, so she could face him squarely, though he made a point of not looking at her.

"Kanan, Ezra hasn't fallen and I won't let you act like he has. He had a brush with the dark side. So have you, my Jedi love.  
Instead of dwelling on what you don't know, how about you concentrate what you do know?" she said firmly, but kindly. She  
knew Kanan fought almost daily with the uncertainty of his ability to teach Ezra. That doubt had been lessening as things  
progressed, for the most part, successfully and like hell if she was going to let Kanan backslid into his personal insecurity.

Hera touched his arm, then his face bringing his pale gaze up to look at her.

"Ezra is a good kid. You will make a good Jedi out of him," she assured.

"I just don't know what to do in this case," Kanan confessed.

"How did you deal with your brush with the dark side?" she asked, not without caution. Kanan almost never talked about  
about his time alone, his time after the death of his Master and the destruction of the a Temple. It was normally his first  
instinct to change the subject or distract her when a question came too close to that old wound, but, with some surprise,  
she saw him thinking.

"I just kind of buried the memory. I... was on my own at the time. I just made myself not think about it," he said at last,  
voice soft.

"Did it work?"

A shrug. "Not really. The sense of the dark side always plagued me for a long time after. It seemed to hover at the edge of  
my senses, like it was waiting for another chance. It made life difficult."

"And Ezra might suffer the same fate if you don't talk to him about this. Where did he go wrong?" Hera asked.

"Ezra didn't fail, I did," Kanan protested in Ezra's defense. It was endearing, how the man had become protective of his  
Padawan, but that attitude wouldn't help things.

"Kanan, Ezra did use the dark side, that is his failure as much as yours. Accept that. Just as you can fail, he can fail. You're  
in this together. Trying to act like your doing this alone is not going to help anyone, least of all Ezra!" she countered firmly, if  
a touch harshly. The verbal slap jarred the Jedi and he looked at her in a moments shock, then sighed and dropped his head.

"He failed because he didn't maintain a sense of calm in a difficult situation," Kanan said.

"There you go. So that's what you've got to teach him. To not let him let his emotions get the better of him in a fight."

"Not like I'm the best example for him to go by," Kanan sighed with an ironic smirk. She couldn't help but share it. Yeah,  
Kanan wasn't all that good at staying calm in a fight as well. He could be downright emotional, as Jedi went.

"Then perhaps you have as much to learn as Ezra in that regard," Hera shot back.

He rolled his eyes and made an annoyed gesture. "I hate when you're right, you know that?"

"Yup, I know." She smiled, planting her hands on her hips in emphasis. "Doesn't change the fact that I am right."

"Yeah, yeah," Kanan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You're right, I've got to do better so Ezra can do better."

"Sounds like a good start; after you check in on Ezra." She hooked his arm and steered him towards the door. "After all,  
you're the only one around here that can relate to what he's gone through."

Kanan resisted, looking down on her uncertainly. "I'm not sure what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Kanan. You can just listen, or maybe tell Ezra about your own brush with the dark side."  
Then she gave him a playful waggle of her eyebrows. "Let the force guide you."

"Ha, ha," Kanan said dryly, but she knew he had listened and he was ready for his next challenge as a Jedi Master. She  
opened the door and gave him a nudge toward it.

"Go. Do Jedi stuff," she ordered and he went, pausing only long enough to deliver a quick kiss to her cheek.

"You're the best, you know that?" He smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Yeah, I know."

He left her at that and she watched him go satisfied that, at least for the moment, everything was going to be okay.


End file.
